Boston Living

I love hostels !!!!  I love Boston!

I love this charlies kitchen bar and grill.  Tom petty, bruce springsteens I'm on fire (2x)....  They use a dishwasher for the glassware

I haven't eaten more than an Apple and coffee all day, twelve hours, I have United to thank for that.

I went from this in Chicago: 

To this Boston Hostel: 

don't ask me why there is a tree trunk/telephone pole in the middle of this bathroom.  there just is. 

the lockers in this room are amazing, never seen bigger, with clothes hangers!  each bed has a little cubby hole with a lamp and dedicated electrical outlet!  I am impressed. 

Seriously love hostels.  free pool table, board games, hair dryers in the private enclosed bathrooms, coffee bar in lobby, giant ass lobby, full kitchen, right on the border of the Theatre and Chinatown District in Boston.  Amazing.  Also, full of my people, so many asians, just like that hostel in Chicago, full of asian people, i don't know what that is all about. 

Went to Harvard University.  It was cool.  I guess.  I was a little disappointed by the lack of ivy league architecture.  It was all brick buildings or post-modern stuff when I was hoping for super old gothic victorian stuff.  but I only saw a small part of it in the dark, maybe i just missed it.  I rubbed John Harvard's shoe. 

Status Update

United airlines still the worst.

Sitting on the tarmac now for twenty minutes. Forty minutes behind schedule and counting.

Update: one hour, fives minutes behind schedule and counting....

Protip: if you got somewhere important to be, and you have to fly United, pad you itinerary with a few extra hours, you will probably need it.

Update 3: off the plane now , two hours and counting.  It's hard to communicate the depth of my distaste for this airline. This is all because of a missing part required to lock a food cart. They call this item a "no go", meaning you no go if you no have. It takes two hours to get to Boston. I say leave the cart behind, we will survive two hours without diet soda and $11 crackers with cheese.

Update 4: I am filled with so much hate for this company that has stolen four hours of my vacation away from me.  four hours of my precious life I will never get back.

This is your life and its ending one minute at a time.

Hotel gym

Better than some you'd have to pay for.

Palmer house hotel by Hilton

The Palmer house is the classiest hotel I've stayed in. Not the most expensive or nicest but the most classic.  rebuilt in 1875 after the great Chicago fire, this hotel has over 1600 rooms and is famed for its illustrious celebrity history including Johnny blue eyes and the rat pack. It was cool. Almost as impressive as the grand lobb, was the hotel gym.   I had me a glass of scotch in the lobby to be sophisticated and rich ($17 for a  double scotch, mccallan 12 years, not including 10% tax and tip)

The last minute and low season room rate is only 120 - 150, but prime time starts around 400-500 plus 16% TAT. Protip: book it last minute to get a cool deal on a nice hotel. Or just go in for the lobby bar and enjoy. our group rate was 100/night, ridiculous cheap.

Beans rice, tomato shroom herb egg thing, chicken.

the weather has been great.  thanksgiving weekend was great.  everyday should be a four day weekend where i get to eat and sleep and get drunk.   i finally started the process of installing curtains for my windows.  all i need now are the hooks, rods and curtain.  it only took me a year and two months of living here to get to this point.

assembled in America

Bucket List Item #12

i'm still trying to process my feelings about seeing Tegan and Sara live in concert.   It was strangely anti-climatic.

Sara looked great .  Sara absolutely wails, the neck tendons on that girl when she sings...  I love sara.  Tegan sucks though.


I was a little star struck.  Tegan and Sara are actually real, alive lumps of flesh.

I've been praying that the good weather holds out for tegan and sara to enjoy.  I would hate it if the weather got weird on their end-of-tour hawaii vacation. 

finally

I paid a highschool girls volleyball team to wash my car for me today. Best ten bucks i've ever spent in my entire life.  I've been meaning to wash and wax my car for years now, it's been hovering over me and on my to-do list for years now and only now does it occur to me that i can just pay other people to wash my car for me instead of trying to find the time and energy to do it myself. America!

After they washed it for me, i bought some car wax and waxed teh car myself, and now my car slices through the air like a shiny fuel efficient hot knife through room temperature unsalted butter. 

I've listened to a lot of touching, insightful, powerful, meaningful love songs over the course of my life, but i've decided i'm going to give the first prize to this: :Two Jealous Agains":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LsVX_6cxP0

Nofx's "Two Jealous Agains".  a subtle punk-rock-sweet love song.  I like it for it's understated sentiment.

9/14/15 update:

As they said: all relationships will either end in heart break or death:

"One Jealous Agains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3lHCPeVXHU 

I was thinking about how sad it would have been for our dimension if tom brady had ended up as a life insurance salesman in Ann Arbor Michigan.

then i thought about it some more and can't help but wonder what horrible and wonderful things our world has missed out on because of stuff like this.  if hitler had been accepted into his first choice art school, if tom brady had never been drafted 199th in the sixth round, if that sherpa hadn't decided to turnaround that snowy day in january in the Himalayan mountains... things would would be different.  oh what our lives are worth. 

SF August 2014: Lolo on Valencia Street

 another san francisco business trip, another restaurant recommendation, another mission accomplished in the Mission.  above was my favorite dish, tuna tacons, they tasted like Wagu beef.

 The famous Taco Tropical, that i didn't eat cuz it was mostly shrimp and i was too full from the grilled brussel sprouts and other taco thing we ordered and empanadas.

an iIalian dog with "blood orange tarragon soda" at Showdogs on Market Street.  Delicious.

On friday, I caught the biggest wave i've ever ridden on a surfboard, it was like....20 feet face, brah....brah, it was sooo big, I snapped the lip like 7 times, brah...brah...  but no, seriously, it was epic.

Then i got sick.  so I moved furniture on Saturday to make myself feel worse.   then on sunday I finally started to read the last book in the Wheel of Time Series, book 13 of 13....a epic fantasy series that was so classic and epic even the orignal author couldn't stand it anymore and died and they had to find somebody else to write the last three books.  A finale 22 years in the making.  I have read the each book in the series at least ten times each probably.  I've been saving this book, waiting for a lazy day at home, or a long weekend to really relax and enjoy the book properly but it made sense for me to read it on my day of convalescence.  I read for at least 12 hours straight.   the book itself?  meh.  It brought closure...but... meh.....  this series is just full of ups and downs over the course of the 13 novels.... i would have to quantify then average out the quality of the story telling.  Wheel of Time is no Game of Thrones, I'll tell you that much.

Then at work i was researching nursing homes and have firmly decided to kill myself before I ever got to that point.  I was reading government inspection reports and between the regulatory violations of these nursing home operators and reading about the medical conditions the elderly residents were suffering... i decided it's better to go out in my terms.  Like Hunter Thompson with a .357 after a life of good times.  Not as double leg amputee resident #12 with necrotized bedsores who hasn't been fed his diabetes medicine or bathed in two weeks by an underpaid, overworked and slightly apathetic nursing staff.

I was sick.

I saw a young seal couple swim by me as i was surfing at the point.

Tomorrow, I fight the banks again.

I found fifty dollars in my jeans when I was doing laundry.

These nights have been global warming hot.

it's been over three months now.

"Worthy [a Defensive Lineman the patriots recently traded for a late round pick] looks like he would be best as a one-gap penetrator in a 4-3 defense. He could play the three-technique in a Tampa-2 defense that requires a quick tackle to fire through the gap. Worthy is at his best when he is trying to get into the backfield to make plays. ... 

While Worthy probably is a better fit in a 4-3 defense, he could play the five-technique as an end in a 3-4. His ability to hold his ground could set the edge and free up outside linebackers. However, that may not be the best use of his talents." 

this kind of analysis makes me hard, even though I don't understand a word of it. 

Update: United airlines still the worst.

United is still the worst.

That black guy from reno 911

I'm pretty sure that black guy between the bald guy and the guy with hat is the dude from tv show "Reno 911". Poor guy isn't doing  too well if he is flying economy.

This is my first airplane celebrity sighting, very exciting. Very fulfilling.

Bourgeois pig

Lunch and coffee before going to airport at a, for lack of a better word, cute, coffee shop. The bourgeois pig.

Hipster. That's another word that could be used to describe the place.

Hipster but in a good way. 

There's an upstairs study that looks like an early 20th century bourgeois Victorian living room. If I was a student living in that neighborhood, I would go there everyday to study and drink coffee. 

I would even consider going back to school just so I can study in that coffee shop.

There was an inordinate number of young Asian people traveling in large groups and singly in that hostel.

Kentucky bluegrass country...

which is just another way to say rich, landed, property owners in Lexington Kentucky. 

89.9 FM and 96.7 FM

Country Music.  Where have you been all my life?!

Truckers and trucking music

I have lots of respect for what truckers do.  Theirs is not an easy job.  Here are a few of the songs that were playing in my head in an endless loop of background music:

"Turn the Page": certain lines of this song were my anthem on this road trip.  

"Papa Was A Rodeo": Once again, The Magnetic Field's Papa Was A Rodeo was the background music to my life:  "Home was anywhere with diesel gas, love was a trucker's hand, never stuck around long enough....for a one night staannniaaannnnaaaannnnndddd...".

"Here I Go Again": self explanatory.

Between 6/7/14 abd 6/14/14, I have driven 2,475 miles. According to Google Maps I spent at least 33 hours driving, but I assure you I spent much more than 33 hours sitting behind the wheel.

Here I am last night trying to save a few bucks and sleeping in the back of my SUV rental in a highway rest stop on my way back to Chicago: I didn't want to pay for a motel room for a few hours of sleep:

I'm very happy that the car rental agency place "upgraded" me for free to an SUV, instead of the 4 door sedan I reserved.  I am a big fan of sleeping in the back of SUV/hatchbacks with dropped down backseats.  Not to romanticize it, because it sucks, but it can be pretty convenient and way more comfortable than a sedan.  

However, the night I slept in the car, I think this was in Indiana, it was about 55 degrees during the night and i had nothing to keep me warm but a hoodie.  I even resorted to wrapping myself up in an emergency rain poncho to try to stay warm; that didn't work too well.  I ended up turning the car on and turning on the heat but i wasn't sure how much gas that would suck up and since I only had a little bit of gas left, i had to be really careful with doing that.  I  love traveling. 

$43/Night (inclusive)

Hip boutique hotel? or $43/night hostel?

Free Wifi, free computer stations with free printing, private rooms, free breakfast, giant free use kitchen, vending machines, ice machines, actual front desk clerks with little earphone walkie talkie things, pool table, tasteful indie pop rock playing in the background, grand piano, touch screen hotel info guide, outdoor seating area, all in a historic section of Chicago, right off of North Clark Street (which is just miles of shops and restaurants) and short walking distance from public transport.  

And people wonder why I am such a fan of hostels.  

Admittedly, the bathroom situation can use some improvement.  There are way too many beds for the number of toilets and shower stalls here.  I had to walk up to the third floor to find the least disgusting bathroom to poo in.  The toilet-to-bed ratio is way off.  But as Macklemore would say, "but hey, it was 4,300 cents a night" 

Devon Avenue, Chicago IL

I have been magically transported back to India.  Surly servers, slow service, thalis and delicious rava masala dosas.  

I was a little too excited. And hungry. I ordered way too much.

and look! There are even Betel nut stains on the sidewalk!  That's some authentic indian culture: 

End of my Southern Road trip

Time to start heading home.

I need to watch TV more Often

Why? So commercials can tell me that things like CougarLife.com exists.